Bazinga!

Six weeks ago, I was clever enough to decide, with adequate advance notice, to throw Hubby a SURPRISE 28th birthday party.  What was originally just a fun idea became a perfectly executed reality as of yesterday afternoon. 

Last month I told Hubby not to make plans for the Saturday of his birthday.  I said we were going somewhere.  I had plans for us.  Just the two us. 

Clearly, I was a LIAR. 

Although I did have plans, my plans included 20 or 30 of our closest friends shouting BAZINGA at Hubby as he obliviously walked into the house. 

So Friday night, Hubby's actual birthday, he and I had a nice dinner at a nearby restaurant.  Hubby spent most of the meal convincing himself that he'd figured out my Saturday plans.  He was quite certain that we'd go see a favourite local band.  He quizzed me repeatedly, watching for my reaction.  "It doesn't even matter what you say," he said.  "I can just read you."  Oh really, Hubby?  You can read me?  Wow.  That's IMPRESSIVE.

Little did Hubby know, I'd been playing him like a fiddle for weeks. 

I started by asking his friend Larry to come to town, and get Hubby the hell outta my house for a few hours while I laboured. 

Then, I convinced Hubby to take a break on Saturday from roofing our house.  "You deserve a break, Honey.  It's your birthday for christsakes." 

Next, I asked my hilarious genius friend LB to tweet me, inviting me for a late lunch on Saturday afternoon.  Hubby would see the tweets and his subconscious would be incepted with the idea that I'd made plans. 

This meant that when Larry made an "unexpected" visit to town and wanted to hang out during the day, Hubby was free to do so.  The only rule was that he HAD to be home BY 7 O'CLOCK.  We had plans, of course. 

When Larry and Hubby left at 1:15 yesterday afternoon, by 1:16 I was cleaning, preparing food, collecting beer and cheese that was hidden at the neighbour's house, picking up the cake, and making up a dozen air mattresses for our house guests.  And while Larry managed to expertly distract Hubby for SIX WHOLE HOURS, I didn't manage to sit down even once during that same six hour period. 

But when Hubby walked through our door at precisely 7pm, all our effot was totally worth it.  He basically freaked out.  It was precious. 

Aaaaannnnddd... then we all rocked until 4am.  There was guitar playing, song singing, food eating, beer drinking, and of course late night living room dance partying. 

Thank you Sheldon Cooper. 

International Beer Pyramid.

Hubby wearing his new "Madame" sunglasses. 

 

 

Happy birthday Hubby darling.  I'm glad you didn't have a heart attack.  Although hospital parties can be fun too, I suppose. 

My life: the movie.

Life in this house is a matter of several stupid moments strung together into a series of idiocy that must at least merit a low budget short-film with a cast of unknown actors.

==================

Hubby:  I vacuumed the whole basement yesterday. 

Me:  Oh, great. 

Hubby:  And then, once I finished, I noticed that the vacuum hose was detached.  Just the beater was working.  Nothing was getting sucked up.  ...  So I vacuumed the whole thing again. 

Me:  *laughing at Hubby's expense*

==================

 

I was in a deep sleep this morning.  It was 4:38 am.  I was dreaming.  And then I was shockingly and abruptly awakened by a giant anvil falling onto my chest! 

 

Ok, so it was less of an anvil, and more of a Tuxedo Cat who got spooked by Hubby's pillow-flip, ran onto my chest, and pushed off into the air. 

 

But it felt like an anvil.  And I was so dazed and confused that hyperventilation quickly followed, while both Hubby and Tuxedo Cat stared and waited for calm to return and logic to reign. 

 

==================

 

Hubby:  The new IOS6 came out today.  You can update your phone. 

 

Me:  Yeah?  How long does it take?

 

Hubby:  Oh, about 30 or 45 minutes I guess. 

 

Me:  And can I use my phone while it updates?

 

Hubby:  Well, no .

 

Me:  ...

 

Hubby:  You're never going to do it, are you?  You'll just have the old version forever. 

 

Me:  Yeah, that's what I was thinking. 

 

==================

Ever been drunk before? I bet you have.

Have you ever gone to bed at 2:30am totally wham-shammered a little bit tipsy, only to find that you took the sheets off earlier that day and forgot to replace them before drinking several glasses of red wine throughout the evening?

No?

Well, good on ya, because it's tricky making the bed under those circumstances.  Trust me. 

First of all, you have to pick all the matching pillowcases of the right sizes and shapes. Then you have to struggle with that damn fitted sheet, which means you may or may not end up stumbling and falling face-first into the mattress.  Repeatedly. Probably. 

Also?  All those duvet cover buttons are fucking difficult. 

So what led to this disaster, you might be wondering?

Hubby's buddy, known around here as Larry (as in: Larry, Hubby, and Moe), came for a visit with his adorable and hilarious - and very wine-generous - girlfriend.  Let's call her Shemp. 

Shemp brought the red wine, and then when that ran out, Hubby miraculously found a couple more bottles. Before we knew it: I was winning at Taboo; Hubby was throwing Taboo cards across the room; Shemp was suggesting we play Apples to Apples instead; Hubby was spilling red wine on the carpet; Shemp was grinding a salt shaker all over the stain; Larry was showing off the speckled reddish purple spots on his socks; Shemp was vacuuming up the salt; and I was eating stuffed crust pizza. 

And then, THEN, is when things took a turn for the better.  Because that's when, my dear friends, my favourite activity of all time took place.

Late night living room dance party, y'all. 

Which if you've ever read my bio, you know is truly the best thing that could ever happen.

Now.  You'd think that all that jumping and hopping and singing and running and moon-walking and sock-sliding would somehow reduce the effects of the red wine... but I think it has the opposite effect.  Like, somehow, it gets your blood pumping rapidly so all the alcohol goes coursing through your veins even faster than it normally would.  Or something. 

So by the time 2:30 came around, and the last song had been played (Beyoncé, If I Were a Boy - DUH), finding the bed unmade was a matter worth shouting and complaining about.  I nearly stole Larry and Shemp's guest bed. 

That said, it's been a while since I've laughed so hard at Hubby, so at least there's that. 

Meet my friend Sinkhole

Remember when I told you about Tuesday's sinkhole? 

This sinkhole:

Well, that sinkhole has become quite the running gag around here. 

On Wednesday morning, more people talked about that sinkhole than talked about the several serious news stories impacting our city, including a provincial election and even a tragic shooting.  Unlike the other legitimate news stories, the sinkhole was novel; it was tangible; it was impacting thousands of commuters.  It was the talk of the town. 

Then the sinkhole got bigger, which just fueled its news-worthiness.  It became the size of an Olympic pool (Michael Phelps style), which meant the whole east-bound highway would be closed for TWO WEEKS for repairs - including the expensive special order of GIANT sewer pipes. 

This is HIGHWAY, you guys.  A real highway that is packed with commuters every day before and after work, linking my eastern suburb to centretown.  So I'm sure you can imagine the commuter chaos that ensued. 

Cars were backed up for hours upon hours across the city.  Of course I was thrilled to take the bus.  Our city transpo services got their shit together on this one.  They fully screwed over highway drivers by maintaining the dedicated bus lane.  BOOYAW. 

And then things got ridiculous, because that's when the sinkhole got itself a twitter account. 

The sinkhole tweets, you guys. 

Par example:

And then I died with laughter. 

People all over town are tweeting the sinkhole.  News stations are interviewing it.  It sends messages to the mayor. 

Folks are joking about the likelihood that the sinkhole was the attempt of our suburb to separate itself from the city. (Which, if you're Canadian and just watched the Quebec election, you can appreciate the humour.)

Somebody made a hilarious ecard. 

Bus drivers are thanking the sinkhole for allowing them to re-route onto the wrong side of the highway.  Because it's fun. 


The whole city is laughing at the disaster of a car pulled from the sinkhole's mouth. 

And then, every time I assume this whole thing will blow over, it gets even better. 

Yesterday, ANOTHER SINKHOLE (no joke) fell through on the French side of the river, and of course it started tweeting too...  

 

...making the whole ordeal so priceless that I simply cannot get enough.

We're all going to fall to our deaths. Basically.

For Christsakes.

It's been fairly discouraging at work lately. We're working on a big project and everywhere we turn there's a new fucking pothole in our way. "Can't go over it, can't go under it, gotta go through it."

So we patch up the potholes, or we find a way around, or we curse until we feel better and try to move on.

But sometimes they aren't just potholes. Sometimes they are giant fucking caverns and caves and mystery mad hatter rabbit holes that lead us to hell in a goddam coffin masquerading as a hand basket.

So it's frustrating.

To say the least.

And then tonight, I was pretty pleased with myself. I tolerated my day and managed to work EXACTLY eight hours. I arrived at 9:40 and then I was perfectly ready to leave at 5:40.

So I did.

I walked in the rain to the bus stop, waited, got onto a damp and smelly bus, opened my book, and tried to tune out the world for my next 45 to 50 minutes of peace.

And then, 5 minutes from my last stop, the bus just. stopped. moving. It just stopped.

Now. In a city of expert bus designers, our buses never just stop. There are bus lanes and terminals and all forms of this-isn't-a-subway-but-it's-almost-the-same-we-swear tactics that keep our buses running smoothly.

Sometimes.

Kind of.

Probably.

So when my bus came to a dead halt in the highway bus lane, my confusion slowly turned to frustration, which in my case usually leads to homicidal tendencies.

As you can surely imagine, my murderous rage didn't improve much as we sat there FOR 25 MINUTES. 

And do you care to know WHY this injustice was brought upon me?

Behold:

POTHOLE.

It was a fucking pothole, people.

No. Not a pothole. A SINKHOLE.

That's a car. IN A SINKHOLE.

That car there - the one with its ass end sticking out of the highway - is not hunting for buried treasure; it is not pretending it is a cartoon ostrich; it is not digging a fort.

No.

That car GOT SUCKED INTO THE EARTH BY THE COMMUTING DEMON WHO IS SET ON RUINING MY LIFE.

Don't worry. The guy got out ok. He just crawled out (wtf) and now he has a great story for dinner parties. 

As for me, not only did I get home an hour late, but now I'm terrified that the ground is just going to open up randomly under my feet like those apocalypse movies when the earth cracks and all the people try to run but the crack spreads and they all get sucked in and I'm obviously going to fall miles and miles to my eventual painful demise.

Or worse, I might get trapped in a muddy pit.

Either way, it ain't pretty.

Long weekend movie mayhem

I've watched a couple of movies this weekend.  Ok, like, several movies. 

I think movies were specifically designed for long weekends - because with one extra day, it's easier to justify two-hour increments of sitting in front of a screen. 

As we speak, I'm watching Inception.  It hurts my brain to follow the detailed plot of dreams, within dreams, within dreams... but the cast is pretty awesome.  And Leo is so delicious that I barely care about the plot.

I'm actually a very skilled dreamer.  Or a bad sleeper.  I'm not sure which.  In any case, I seem to be able to direct my dreams like they were movies.  Sometimes they have elaborate characters and story lines.  I think I'm some sort of supernatural dream wizard.  Or I'm psychotic.  It isn't clear.  Of course, if I were a dream wizard, I think Leo would appear more often. 

Speaking of Leo, last night's movie choice was a good one.  Hubby and I watched The Departed.

I like this movie.  It's damn violent, but Jack Nicholson, Martin Sheen, and Alec Baldwin are pretty excellent. I don't love Matt Damon's performance, but that's ok. He's still cute. And his Boston accent reminds me of Good Will Hunting, which can never be a bad thing.  But I dare say, Marky Mark is the highlight:  "Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe fuck yourself."






Yesterday was also a day for love stories. 

First I watched Cold Mountain.  This is certainly one of the most beautiful movies ever made.  I've loved it for years.  Since before Jude Law became a bit of a wiener. 

I also watched The Lucky One.

Although I generally dislike Nicholas Sparks, I have read a few of his books (hoping for something romantic). Sadly, they're all mediocre. I've since decided to stick to his movies, because the books are not only a bit blah, but they're lacking certain gorgeous men such as my boyfriend Ryan Gosling, the handsome Channing Tatum, and the surprisingly yummy adult Zac Efron.

The last on my list of recently watched is Jurassic Park. 

Now.  Please do me a favour and acknowledge that this film represents one of the most terrifying concepts of all time.  I mean, LARGE, SCARY LIZARDS ARE CHASING AND BITING PEOPLE.  A circumstance of which I'm quite certain none of you can deny the sheer terror.   


Naturally, when it ended, I was happy to see that Jurassic Park 2 The Lost World was set to follow.  Which I watched in full, despite the fact that I think Jeff Goldblum puts on a pretty rough performance.  I have to admit though, his whole style is pretty hilarious.  I'll always like his appearance in Friends the best.